Anyway, i was working on a way to visualize how often specific proposals were applied before.
So far, we're doing this by simply appending a "m/n" String, showing how often a specific method(m) was applied out of all applied proposals(n). This works OK for a small number of proposals, but looks silly for larger values. e.g. "".substring() 2223/39643.

My idea is to use a color coded heatmap instead, where the color suggests how important a proposal is.
Two approaches here: 1) color the background of the entire proposal. 2) append a colored box to the proposal.
Here are two screenshots:

Keep in mind, the color scheme is just temporary.

I see some cons for both:

Option 1:
- The background color only applies to the String not to the entire line. Looks strange.
- Harder to read (can be improved with a better color scheme)

Option 2:
- The color information gets lost, if the completion popup window is smaller than the proposal. User has to scroll to see it.

What do you like better? Any ideas how to improve these approaches? Do you have a different idea?

I think you mixed up the screenshots. Description 2 seems to belong to the upper image.

In a first reaction, I prefer the solution from the second screen shot in which the colour information is placed next to the numbers.
Another option could be to use the colour as a background for the XXX/YYY numbers instead of using it for the entire string.

I also prefer the second solution (screenshot option 2).
I also like the suggestion from Uwe: use the colour as background for n/m.

Maybe another option would be to use bold font instead of colours?

<< Do you find these large numbers disturbing (or maybe you like them because they tell you how many people used the methods before)? >>
Hm .. I'm not sure, the large numbers are cool but on the other side it distract me.

I think the main goal of his type of code recommendation is to prioritise the list of methods. A developer wants to see how often a method is used in comparison to the other available methods. Absolute numbers don't matter as much as relative numbers, I think. So it might be sufficient to show percentages and/or colour codes.
In addition to that, you could offer a preference setting to switch between absolute numbers and relative numbers. It could be fun to see some big absolute numbers from time to time.

Thank you all for your feedback.
If you want to try this for yourself, there is an updated version of the hippie plugin on our update site.
You can switch between the simple m/n method used before and a heatmap relevance indicator. Simply go to the Code Recommenders/Hippie preference page.

Please continue the discussion; this is not necessarily the final version.